De Blasio declares ‘good day’ in NYC’s fight against coronavirus as hospitalizations, other indicators go down

Mayor de Blasio cheered progress in New York City’s fight against coronavirus on Thursday as the number of new hospital admissions, patients in intensive care and percent of positive tests decreased.

“Today is a very good day,” de Blasio said at a remote briefing on Thursday. “Three for three, a perfect day, New York City.”

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The city is looking for declining numbers in three areas — new hospital admissions, ICU patients and percentage of positive tests — before some coronavirus restrictions are lifted. The city reports the three indicators with a two-day lag.

The number of people admitted to both public and private hospitals with COVID-19 symptoms decreased to 59 on Tuesday, a drop from the 79 total new admissions on Monday. That’s significantly less than the peak of 850 new admissions to hospitals on March 31.

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There were 517 people in ICUs at 11 public hospitals on Tuesday, down by 44 patients compared to the day before.

“That’s a big jump in the right direction,” de Blasio said. “That means you’re talking about fewer and fewer fighting for their lives, more and more people being saved.”

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The number of ICU patients at public hospitals reached its peak on April 14 with 887 people.

Citywide, 11% of those tested came back positive as of Tuesday, a two-point drop from Monday. On April 12, 61% of those tested citywide were positive for coronavirus.

The city wants all three indicators to go down for 10 consecutive days or over a period of two weeks, and fall below certain levels, before some coronavirus closures end.

The goal is to reach less than 200 new hospital admissions for coronavirus symptoms, and fewer than 375 people in critical care in public hospitals. The city also wants to see fewer than 15% of the citywide tests come back positive.

“We are getting in range now of hitting all our numbers in the first half of June,” de Blasio said.